Through the 1920s and 1930s, Nazi publications lauded Turkey as a friend and forerunner. In 1922, for example, the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party’s weekly paper, praised Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the “Father of the Turks,” as a “real man,” embodying the “heroic spirit” and the Führerprinzip, or führer principle, that demanded absolute obedience. Atatürk’s subordination of Islam to the state anticipated Hitler’s strategy toward Christianity. The Nazis presented Turkey as stronger for having massacred its Armenians and expelling its Greeks. “Who,” Hitler asked in August 1939, “speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?”

Apparently Hitler believed in the congruence between the values and principles espoused by Islam and his vision of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch”:

‘It’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion,” Hitler complained to his pet architect Albert Speer. “Why did it have to be Christianity, with its meekness and flabbiness?” Islam was a Männerreligion—a “religion of men”—and hygienic too. The “soldiers of Islam” received a warrior’s heaven, “a real earthly paradise” with “houris” and “wine flowing.” This, Hitler argued, was much more suited to the “Germanic temperament” than the “Jewish filth and priestly twaddle” of Christianity.

…Muslims fought on both sides in World War II. But only Nazis and Islamists had a political-spiritual romance. Both groups hated Jews, Bolsheviks and liberal democracy. Both sought what Michel Foucault, praising the Iranian Revolution in 1979, would later call the spiritual-political “transfiguration of the world” by “combat.” The caliph, the Islamist Zaki Ali explained, was the “führer of the believers.” Made by Jews, led by Jews—therewith Bolshevism is the natural enemy of Islam,” wrote Mahomed Sabry, a Berlin-based propagandist for the Muslim Brotherhood in “Islam, Judaism, Bolshevism,” a book that the Reich’s propaganda ministry recommended to journalists.

By late 1941, Germany controlled large Muslim populations in southeastern Europe and North Africa. Nazi policy extended the grand schemes of imperial Germany toward madly modern ends. To aid the “liberation struggle of Islam,” the propaganda ministry told journalists to praise “the Islamic world as a cultural factor,” avoid criticism of Islam, and substitute “anti-Jewish” for “anti-Semitic.” In April 1942, Hitler became the first European leader to declare that Islam was “incapable of terrorism.”

…As the war went on, Balkan Muslims were added to the “racially valuable peoples of Europe.” The Palestinian Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, recruited thousands of these “Musligermanics” as the first non-Germanic volunteers for the SS. Soviet prisoners of Turkic origin volunteered too. In November 1944, Himmler and the Mufti created an SS-run school for military imams at Dresden.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the founder of Palestinian nationalism, is notorious for his efforts to persuade the Nazis to extend their genocide of the Jews to the Palestine Mandate. The Mufti met Hitler and Himmler in Berlin in 1941 and asked the Nazis to guarantee that when the Wehrmacht drove the British from Palestine, Germany would establish an Arab regime and assist in the “removal” of its Jews. Hitler replied that the Reich would not intervene in the Mufti’s kingdom, other than to pursue their shared goal: “the annihilation of Jewry living in Arab space.” The Mufti settled in Berlin, befriended Adolf Eichmann, and lobbied the governments of Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to cancel a plan to transfer Jews to Palestine. Subsequently, some 400,000 Jews from these countries were sent to death camps.

And it bears noting that the Communist Soviet Union — which itself had a history of widespread anti-Semitism — would also seek to harness latent Jew-hated in the Arab world beginning in the 1970s, as part of a strategy to turn the region into a bastion of anti-Americanism.

KGB chairman Andropov told me that “our” disinformation machinery should ignite a campaign aimed at transforming Arab anti-Semitism into an anti-American doctrine for the whole Muslim world. The idea was to portray the United States as a war-mongering, Zionist country financed by Jewish money and run by a rapacious “Council of the Elders of Zion” (the KGB’s derisive epithet for the U.S. Congress), the aim of which was to transform the rest of the world into a Jewish fiefdom. Andropov made the point that one billion adversaries could cause far greater damage than could a mere 150 million.

The KGB boss described the Muslim world as a waiting petri dish, in which we could nurture a strain of hate-America. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism and victimology. We had only to keep repeating, over and over, that the United States was a war-mongering, Zionist country financed by Jewish money, with the goal of taking over the whole world.

The KGB community threw millions of dollars and thousands of people into that gigantic project, as described in our book.

GOP Aims to Use Congressional Review Act to Undo Obama Regulations

By Courtney Coren

Republican lawmakers are aiming to use the Congressional Review Act as their weapon to tackle regulations President Barack Obama has enacted.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte told The Hillthat using the CRA wasn’t “possible … in a divided Congress, but now that it is, we certainly are interested in review regulations to make sure they meet with congressional intent.”

The CRA allows for Congress to review and disapprove rules submitted by federal agencies before they go into effect. However, in order to disapprove a rule, Congress has to pass a joint resolution in both the House and Senate.
Even though the CRA has been in effect since 1996, Congress has only disapproved of one rule, even though 43 resolutions in total have been introduced by lawmakers.
“The CRA has been used sparingly in the past and some folks may say it’s too aggressive, but frankly the aggressive nature of this administration’s regulations demands an aggressive response,” a senior aide to Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe told The Hill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened to draft resolutions last year to prevent the rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut carbon emissions by new power plants from going into effect.

Inhofe, who is now the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is also honing in on the EPA.
“There is widespread agreement among Republicans and the business community that the EPA under the Obama administration is out of control and it’s taking things to the extreme,” Inhofe’s aide added.
Lawmakers are only allowed to try to disapprove a new regulation within 60 days of when the rule takes effect, and a filibuster may not be used to try to stop a resolution from passing.

Obama still has the ability to veto any CRA resolution, and it is unlikely Republicans will garner enough Democratic support to overturn a veto.
However, GOP lawmakers still believe it could be an effective strategy to highlight what they think are Obama’s “job-killing” regulations as well as show they are trying to do something about them. And they argue it will at least force the Democrats in Congress to go on the record either supporting or opposing Obama administration rules.

Obama tries to steal GOP’s thunder

President Obama, no longer handcuffed by worries about vulnerable red-state Democratic senators, has been putting Republicans on their back foot.
Check it out:

The GOP hoped Obama would be humbled by the midterm elections that saw Democrats swept from power in the Senate.

Instead, when Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress completely controlled by the GOP on Tuesday, Republicans will see a confident Obama who is bullish about his own approval ratings and no longer worried about anyone else’s reelection.

The GOP will be defending 24 Senate seats in 2016, compared to 10 for Democrats. This includes GOP senators in states Obama has previously carried, such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.

This is a reversal from 2014, when Obama repeatedly calibrated his political messaging for vulnerable Senate Democrats running in deep-red states such as Arkansas, Alaska and Louisiana, where incumbent Democrats fell in November.
Read more at http://cowboybyte.com/36219/obama-tries-steal-gops-thunder/

Obama Wants The Death Tax Increased to 60 Percent, More Taxes on College Savings

As the old saying goes, there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes.
Check it out:

Tomorrow night during his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Obama will announce that people paying taxes their entire lives just isn’t good enough. The President wants the current 40 percent death tax rate increased to 60 percent. Americans for Tax Reform breaks down the details:

Stealth increase in the death tax rate from 40% to nearly 60%.

Under current law, when you inherit an asset your basis in the asset is the higher of the fair market value at the time of death or the decedent’s original basis. Almost always, the fair market value is higher.

Why This Photo of Beauty Queen Miss Israel Is Causing an Uproar

A Lebanese minister said he planned to launch an investigation Monday into how Miss Lebanon ended up being photographed with Miss Israel on the sidelines of the upcoming Miss Universe pageant.

The controversy began when Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, posted a photo on Instagram posing next to the contestant from neighboring Lebanon, stoking an outcry in Lebanon to which Lebanese beauty queen Saly Greige replied that she’d simply been photo-bombed.

Greige asserted that Matalon had tried “several times” to take a picture with her, writing on Instagram Sunday, “The truth behind the photo, since the first day of my arrival to participate to Miss universe,I was very cautious to avoid being in any photo or communication with Miss isreal, [sic] who tried several times to take a photo with me.”

“I was having a photo with Miss Japan, Miss Slovenia, suddenly Miss Israel jumped in and took a selfie, and uploaded it on her social media,” Greige wrote. She posted a version of the photo with the Israeli contestant cropped off.

To this Matalon responded, “It doesn’t surprise me, but it still makes me sad. Too bad you can not put the hostility out of the game, only for three weeks of an experience of a lifetime that we can meet girls from around the world and also from the neighboring country.”

The Daily Star, an English-language Lebanese newspaper, reported that there have been calls for Greige to be stripped of her Miss Lebanon title, because any contact with Israel is illegal in Lebanon.

The Twitter hashtag which translates to “Two words for Miss Lebanon” was trending over the weekend.

The Daily Star quoted a Twitter user who posted, “You could have avoided mingling with the Israeli contestant like previous Lebanese contestants have done throughout the years. And if you were harassed like you say, you could have at least avoided the huge smile [we see] on your face.”

The Times of Israel noted that Matalon recently wrapped up her military service in the Israel Defense Forces where she held the rank of sergeant. This photo of her in uniform appears in her official Miss Universe video.

The Daily Star reported that in 1993, Miss Lebanon Huda al-Turk had her title taken away after she posed with Miss Israel.

Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon said he would launch an investigation Monday into the controversy.

CAMERON VS. THE POPE: British PM Says Pope Is Wrong Saying ‘Those Who Mock Islam Should Expect a Punch’

David Cameron is calling out the Pope in light of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

David Cameron has criticised the Pope, insisting it is wrong to suggest that those who mock Islam and other religions could ‘expect a punch’.

In a highly-unusual move, the Prime Minister put himself at odds with the Pontiff, insisting someone who is offended does not have the right to ‘wreak vengeance’.

The Pope caused anger last week when he suggested people ‘cannot insult the faith of others’, adding that he would punch someone if they offended his mother, as he debated freedom of speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack.

The Pontiff said there were limits to freedom of expression and that ‘provocateurs’ should not purposely anger religious people.

Speaking on board the papal plane on his way to the Philippines, he also insisted that it was an ‘aberration’ to kill in the name of God and that religion can never be used to justify violence.

By way of example, Pope Francis referred to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side aboard the papal plane.

Obama to call for new tax increases in State of the Union address

President Obama plans to call for billions in tax increases on top earners – including a hike in investment tax rates — in order to fund new tax credits and other measures the White House claims will help the middle class.

The president’s proposals, which also include eliminating a tax break on inheritances, are likely to be cheered by the Democratic Party’s liberal base when they are announced Tuesday night in his State of the Union address. However, the tax increases are all but certain to be non-starters with the new Republican majority on Capitol Hill.

The president’s address — his first to a Republican-led Congress — will call for $320 billion in tax increases over 10 years. Aside from funding new tax credits including a tax credit for working families and expanding the child care tax credit, the White House says that money would go to funding measures to make college more afforable and accessible, including the president’s recently announced plan to make community college free for many students.

The centerpiece of the president’s tax proposal is an increase in the capital gains and dividends rate on couples making more than $500,000 per year to 28 percent, the same level as under President Ronald Reagan. The top capital gains rate has already been raised from 15 percent to 23.8 percent during Obama’s presidency.

Obama also wants to close what the administration is calling the “Trust Fund Loophole,” a change that would require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they’re inherited. Officials said the overwhelming impact of the change would be on the top 1 percent of income earners.

CALLED OUT: Giuliani Says Obama Is Cowardly and Weak for Refusing to Say ‘Radical Islam’

Giuliani lowers the boom on Obama by calling him out for refusing to label terrorists as ‘Radical Islamists’.

GIULIANI: Sean, it is, I think, very serious. I think it’s very serious because it sends a signal of cowardice and weakness.

HANNITY: It is cowardly!

GIULIANI: I’m saying this from 40 years of experience of investigating and prosecuting Islamic terrorism going back to the Palestinian hijackings in the 1970s. So this is not just a —

HANNITY: And you went after the mob in a big way…

GIULIANI: And I called them the Mafia, and I was told there was no Mafia… and I was protested by Italian-American groups. And I said if we can’t use the word ‘Mafia,’ we can’t get rid of them. If we can’t use the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ we can’t get rid of them. Then, we can’t separate them from the good members of the Islamic religion.